The religious rights of the Hobby Lobby stores

Rick Holmes

Wednesday

Nov 27, 2013 at 6:10 PMNov 27, 2013 at 7:19 PM

With the Supreme Court’s decision this week to hear appeals in two cases challenging the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that employee insurance policies include coverage for contraception, well, here we go again.

I haven’t read the briefs, though you can find a short summary of the cases here. But while I’ve tried unsuccessfully before to wrap my mind around the logic and theology of the objections, I still have questions that may or may not be resolved by John Roberts & Co.:

1. Does a for-profit corporation – as opposed to its owners – have religious freedom? Where does The Hobby Lobby (one of the plaintiffs) go to church? Has it been baptized?

2. Does an employer’s religious freedom trump an employee’s religious freedom? Is the employer’s right to make it harder for a worker to obtain birth control more worthy of governmental protection than the worker’s right to have her personal reproductive decisions shaped by her boss?

3. Why isn’t it enough to assume that God and the Constitution give us the freedom to make our own moral decisions without demanding that some people have the right to dictate decisions for other people?

Frank Mazzaglia has tried to explain this distinction, but so far I just don’t get it.

With the Supreme Court’s decision this week to hear appeals in two cases challenging the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that employee insurance policies include coverage for contraception, well, here we go again.

I haven’t read the briefs, though you can find a short summary of the cases here. But while I’ve tried unsuccessfully before to wrap my mind around the logic and theology of the objections, I still have questions that may or may not be resolved by John Roberts & Co.:

1. Does a for-profit corporation – as opposed to its owners – have religious freedom? Where does The Hobby Lobby (one of the plaintiffs) go to church? Has it been baptized?

2. Does an employer’s religious freedom trump an employee’s religious freedom? Is the employer’s right to make it harder for a worker to obtain birth control more worthy of governmental protection than the worker’s right to have her personal reproductive decisions shaped by her boss?

3. Why isn’t it enough to assume that God and the Constitution give us the freedom to make our own moral decisions without demanding that some people have the right to dictate decisions for other people?

Frank Mazzaglia has tried to explain this distinction, but so far I just don’t get it.

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